Well, one year is over and another one has begun, and so, there are new experiments on the horizon! 2011 was a year of relative inactivity on this blog. Like so many others, I was affected by this volatile economy. I lost my job to budget and program cuts. I relocated. I reunited with friends and loved ones. It wasn't all bad, but it certainly wasn't easy. In between all of this upheaval, I still thought about chronicling all of it, and this blog was in the back of my mind. I made a lot of excuses about writing, without really seeing the full benefit of keeping up with my experiments.
I can happily say that my last experiment with 750 words had some extremely positive results. Something magical happens after a few weeks, when you run out of things to say. You stop thinking too hard about what to write, and the process becomes far more organic. It becomes easier to find your own voice, instead of playing ego games, trying to sound erudite or focused. In short, you stop deceiving yourself, and you start writing in your own particular voice. This is a good thing, and that is an understatement. Beyond that, 750 words had some pros and cons. I'm going to break everything down, for anyone who is considering using this service.
First, the personal pros and cons of using 750 words:
Pros
- After one month of writing, my writing became more fluid and honest. Writing became second nature, instead of feeling forced.
- The idea that "life gets in the way" of the things we want to do became a thing of the past. I missed a total of four days of writing. I missed two of those because I tried to start writing too late, and I was thwarted by the midnight cutoff. I missed two more days as a result of illness. At first, I beat myself up and felt a bit guilty about missing those days, but then I made some small adjustments in time-management. Completing my entries for the rest of the month was a piece of cake.
- At the end of the month, I want to keep writing. It has had some unforeseen benefits. I stopped avoiding the job-hunt, and I instantly learned that my new/current job is making me miserable. I'm likely to give myself a bit more credit, and start looking for a more appropriate job much earlier than I would have, had I not written about work more often than any other subject.
- So, I can't really call this a con, because I am in favor of introspection, but I can see how it might make writing difficult for some people. Writing without a prompt can make you feel like you are an incredibly boring person. Some days, you might feel as if you have nothing worth saying. Because the only feedback comes from statistics, I can see how some people might want to give up when they start to touch upon uncomfortable subjects. If you can get past feeling over-exposed, the benefits are worth the struggle.
Pros
- For now, the site is completely free to use.
- It is simple and clean, and a complete joy to look at. It doesn't distract from writing.
- The integrated word count is lovely. As soon as you hit 750 words (approximately 3 pages), the site lets you know, courtesy of an obvious and congratulatory green bar at the top right of your journal page. It's like getting instant permission to stop writing on days when writing doesn't come easy, but you always have the option of continuing to write.
- The site awards badges for certain behaviors. You can earn badges for writing consistently for a set number of days, writing without distractions, hitting 750 words in 20 minutes for several days in a row, etc. Like XBOX 360's Achievements or PlayStation Network's Trophy system, a seemingly silly badge can offer the extrinsic motivation that you aren't getting from a public blog or social networking site. If you like earning badges, those badges might just keep you in the habit of writing.
- Metadata, metadata, metadata. You can record just about anything in your posts using metadata tags. (I started tracking the following: sleep, sleep quality, food, coffee, focus, energy, happiness, book, movie, tv show, video game, and music.) If you enter a number immediately after the metadata tag, your results are viewable on a nifty graph. You can even compare two metadata items, if, let's say, you want to see how your sleep habits are affecting your energy level or mood. This feature is a definitely plus, and it is only limited by your imagination.
- If you want to back up your writing, you have the option of exporting each month's journal as a .txt file. You can also hit the printer icon next to each entry, if you prefer having a paper copy right from the get-go.
- The statistics are not as useful as I had hoped they would be. At first, I was really excited to see each day's assessment of my mood, my primary concerns, the sensory information in my writing, etc. Unfortunately, the system is not perfect. For instance, there were several days when I wrote things that were very optimistic, and yet my statistics listed my overall mood as "upset" and "negative." Also, even though I spent most of the month writing about work and success, I found that even using the words "god," "ye gods," or "hell" resulted in a reading that I was most concerned about religion, rather than the topic I was actually contemplating. The overall results under the Eternity tab are much more accurate, because the sample of information is larger, but I'm still skeptical of accuracy. I hope that this feature will continue to see improvements, but for now, it is far inferior to metadata. At least the site creator acknowledges its imperfection, in the FAQ. These emotional statistics are meant to be "taken with a grain of salt."
- Security may still be a concern. Even though the entries are automatically made private, I didn't feel as inclined to list personal information like names, and I found that I couldn't be wholly honest as I was writing. The statistics page works on the foundation of information-gathering, which is not completely accurate, and yet, there is no real, clear security policy listed on the site. It's just a friendly note from the site creator, stating that none of the information gathered will pose a security risk to the users. There are no links to any kind of legal privacy statement...which make me nervous. You can lock your entries using a password, and the lock kicks in automatically after you have been away from your computer for too long, but that only affects your computer.
- Again, along the lines of security, once you have written your words for the day, and the clock hits midnight, it is impossible to go back to previous entries. You can certainly read them, but you can't edit them. In some ways, this helps to keep you honest about yourself and your writing, but it could be problematic. In particular, it is currently impossible to delete individual entries without deleting your entire journal. I suppose that you could delete and reboot your journal each month, but I'd guess that you'd probably have to create another gmail account each time you did so. I could be wrong. In any case, it seems like it would be more trouble than it is worth...and besides, you would lose all of those badges every month.
Well, I am off to work for the evening, but when I get home, it is time for a new experiment!
Cheers!
